Colour can be hard to come by in the garden at this time of year, and when the days are short it’s all too easy to close the curtains on lifeless brown borders and ignore them until spring. But why not add some cheer to the new year instead with some glorious winter shrubs?

Colour can be hard to come by in the garden at this time of year, and when the days are short it’s all too easy to close the curtains on lifeless brown borders and ignore them until spring. But why not add some cheer to the new year instead with some glorious winter shrubs?

Go for bold berries and colourful stems that will brighten things up and look nothing short of spectacular glowing in low winter sunshine. Hardy shrubs can even be planted now in ground that isn’t frozen or waterlogged.

Stands of vibrant dogwood stems make one of the most eye-catching winter displays, and are easy to grow. Varieties of Cornus alba come in rich shades of red, while C. sericea ‘Flaviramea’ is a bright green-tinged yellow. The best displays are prduced in full sun and only the young wood boasts these vivid colours, meaning shrubs need to be cut back close to ground level in early spring each year to promote new growth.

Berries not only look beautiful, they often provide a valuable food source for birds in cold weather. My neighbour has an imposing, tree-sized Cotoneaster frigidus ‘Cornubia’ which drips with heavy bunches of red berries right through winter, making it a magnet for hungry redwings and fieldfares. Many other cotoneasters, such as C. horizontalis, make more compact berry-bearing shrubs that thrive in dry soil. Firethorns (Pyracantha) are also smothered with colourful berries in shades of yellow, orange or red, and look fabulous trained against a wall. It’s easy to forget that many roses will produce fascinating orange-red hips if they are not deadheaded. Species roses, such as Rosa rugosa and R. glauca generally have the best hips, but some varieties, such as R. ‘Fru Dagmar Hastrup’, create a great winter display too.

Forcing rhubarb is a lovely winter job. It sounds technical, but all you’re trying to do is create a warm, dark environment that will encourage the plant to send up tender early stems. A bucket or dustbin placed over the plant will do the job as well as a special terracotta forcing pot and should be filled with long, candy-pink stems in about eight weeks’ time.

January is a good time to take stock in the garden and make plans for the year ahead. This will give you time to prepare new beds for planting and buy this season’s seeds, along with any compost and sundries, such as canes, twine and labels. Going out to do a job and finding that I don’t have what I need is always frustrating. Perhaps a resolution to get organised this year would be a good idea.